


A Goddess's Relic

by fictionisthebetterreality



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Grief, My take on what would happen after the game ends, Post-Canon, Spoilers, a couple of other people make brief appearances, i guess it's nil/aloy if you squint?, loner aloy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:46:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23427199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionisthebetterreality/pseuds/fictionisthebetterreality
Summary: She lasts two weeks, distracting herself by helping Avad and Erend, enlisting the hunters lodge to move machines before the glinthawks and scrappers arrive, finding new homes for families without one, shoving aside a noble or two who think they’re exempt from Avad’s new home policy.Eventually though, as she lies awake listening to the chatter of the city, she gets up, gathers her belongings, and leaves. It’s only when she is miles away, the sun slowly rising over the mountains in the distance that she thinks to leave a note, some sign to show that she has not been kidnapped or spirited away.(It twists at her insides, makes her skin itch, this sense of obligation, still so unused to being noticed, being needed).
Relationships: Aloy/Nil (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few years ago and never posted it, so there's a chance there's some canon divergence as I just can't remember the plot of the game all that well. Hope you enjoy!!

The war is over.

Hades, the false-god, crazed machine, unstoppable force is dead. People celebrate, although most aren’t sure what for. The streets are in ruins, the smell of burning inescapable. Almost a third of the palace caved in after that initial blast, and both eastern elevators lie as rubble strewn across most of Meridian Village. Dead machines are everywhere, with sharp-eyed scavengers already taking advantage of the bounty of a lifetime.

There is mourning, of course, but Carja and Oseram mourning is much like Carja and Oseram celebrating, and so the entire city quickly turns into one big party. Aloy cannot sleep for all the noise. She catches herself wishing, more than once, for the quiet sounds of the forest surrounding her old home, with Rost.

She lasts two weeks, distracting herself by helping Avad and Erend, enlisting the hunters lodge to move machines before the glinthawks and scrappers arrive, finding new homes for families without one, shoving aside a noble or two who think they’re exempt from Avad’s new home policy.

Eventually though, as she lies awake listening to the chatter of the city, she gets up, gathers her belongings, and leaves. It’s only when she is miles away, the sun slowly rising over the mountains in the distance that she thinks to leave a note, some sign to show that she has not been kidnapped or spirited away. (It twists at her insides, makes her skin itch, this sense of obligation, still so unused to being noticed, being _needed_ ).

But it is too late now, and she will have to trust that Avad has enough sense in him not to listen to Erend when he comes claiming bandits have come in the night to exact revenge for Helis. Although, last she saw of Erend he was three tankards down in a drinking contest, so he likely won’t be doing much of anything today. Thinking of the celebrations causes her to grimace, and she welcomes the sight of the sunrise over the desert with relief. The city may be a marvel, but like all great things, she thinks, better to observe it from a distance.

The expanse of sky above relaxes her more than any peacetime celebration could, now she is not hemmed in by great big buildings in a city filled to bursting with people. Despite everything that has happened, it has not been so very long that she left her hut in Nora land, and she finds Meridian overwhelming. She has gone from sharing her entire life with one person to constantly being assaulted by new people wanting to talk to her, to share in her victories and losses, when she barely even _knows_ them. Her ‘people-skills’, as Erend has called them, are noticeably rusty, and he has had to step in more than once to assure her a well-wisher means no harm.

(She has too long been aimed at with barbs to understand the kindness being shown to her now)

The Nora had left quickly after the battle, obviously uncomfortable in the ‘tainted lands’, and though Teb had made her promise to visit as soon as she returns – she doesn’t know when that will be. She finds the Nora more aggravating than ever, has recognized more than one shunner now bow and bless her name, finds the whole tribe to be hypocritical and narrow minded. She misses her home, but has no desire to return there, where Rost’s grave was dug by people who did not know him, did not love him. His loss still wrenches her heart, brings tears to her eyes without warning for the most mundane of things.

As she sits by the campfire, sun bringing the landscape to life, she realises she has no plan for what comes next. Since she was six years old and Rost told her of the Proving, she has always known what her next step is. Now, there is no proving to win, no answers to find. She knows where she came from, what gave birth to her -

_(I had a legitimate birth. It’s you, Aloy, who are the creation of a machine)_

\- why the Eclipse wanted her dead. She probably now knows more about their world than anyone else, bar Sylens, who has already disappeared into lands unknown.

In the silence of the Savannah, she finds GAIA’s voice echoing in her head.

_The terraforming system will continue operations for some time… until eventually, it will break down._

_You are my solution._

Well, who is she to turn down the goddess that created the world?

* * *

She spends months exploring the ruins of GAIA Prime, listening to holotapes, reading notes, watching holograms. She cannot bear to go near the control room, still filled with the bodies of Elizabet’s companions, her friends, all killed because one man thought he knew best.

(She wonders, late at night, looking up at the stars - why didn’t GAIA save them?)

Seasons pass, and she learns nothing. She has no plan, still, had hoped to find something in the wreckage that would point her in the right direction, but there are no more messages left by GAIA, only diary entries from various Alphas, documenting their last days.

Eventually, she ventures out of the ruins and back into the Sundom, determined to explore every ruin she can until she finds _something._

She soon starts avoiding the larger villages, hates how people approach her, demand her attention like she’s some _hero_.

(Saving Meridian was never about its people. Or - not the vast majority of them)

She sees Meridian from a distance, catches sight of the two lifts well on their way to being restored when she passes by on her way south, into the jungle.

She explores ruins already picked clean by Carja scavengers, fights her way into bunkers glittering with scrap metal and the glinthawks that harvest it, crawls into caves undiscovered, lights flickering and flashing in rhythm to some unknown beat.

* * *

A year passes, then two.

The ache of losing Rost never gets easier, and she still wakes with a cry some nights, hand reaching out towards a man long gone.

She is _known_ across these lands now, Sundom and Nora land both, whispers that carry into the highest palaces and lowest bandit camps. She is unmatched in her machine-hunting skill, has seen bandits turn and run when they see her, the flame haired girl with the blue spear.

She starts losing hope. What if there is nothing out here? What if GAIA is too far gone to bring back, with no link to tell Aloy how to help her? In her desperation she returns to Meridian, sticking to the back streets, seeking an audience with Avad in the hopes he has heard something – anything.

It turns out that the Battle of Meridian, as it is known, was the final turning point in Oseram-Carja relations. Building work on the two lifts is faster than ever with Oseram builders supplied by Carja craftsmen. The border is still there, but the hostility is vastly reduced, he tells her.

She exchanges tales of her explorations, mentions one or two relic sites that should now be easier to access, for those scavengers brave enough. When she asks after news, any news, he tells her of the Banuk.

* * *

Nine seasons later she lays a hand against a scanner, and a voice she has only ever heard in another woman’s memories greets her.

“Hello, Aloy. We have much work to do.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I was supposed to leave it 2 weeks and then post it and its been like 2 months of picking and editing but here it is! I hate writing dialogue it is 100% my weakness but I gave it a bit of a go here - let me know what you think!

She started as Aloy, motherless outcast. She became Seeker, Anointed one, Machine- slayer.

Now - she is nothing.

A Tallneck steps slowly in its never ending circuit. Watchers scurry to and fro as several Scrappers surround the wreckage of one of their own. A Fire Bellowback wanders seemingly aimlessly, Longlegs squawking as they scatter out of its way.

None of them pay any attention to her, standing in the middle of the herd.

She struggles to contain her disappointment. Irrational anger rises, makes her want to lash out. She knew this would happen, in theory. Still, working out that once Hades was gone the derangement would stop, and going against a lifetime of attacking and being attacked by machines, are two completely different things. For the past five summers of her life she has had her mission to distract her, has had no need to go out and hunt machines. Now, there are no distractions left.

She pushes the blunt end of her spear into the side of a watcher that walks by. It stumbles, letting out a short croak, and turns to look at her, lowering its head in apparent confusion. Her heart stops for a split second, a trick of the light ( _force of habit_ ) making her see the lense flicker, turn amber, red, before an ear splitting screech - but after simply observing her for a moment, the watcher’s constant blue lens turns and it continues its patrol.

There is a pit opening below her, filled with the lost and unwanted. There is nothing left – no evil to defeat, no answers to be found, not even any machines to defend against.

What now?

“Machine slayer no more, it would seem.”

A voice speaks behind her, and she whirls.

It’s _Nil_ , of all people. Although, she supposes it was only a matter of time before he found her again. The machines may be compliant once more, but people are not so easy to control.

“What do you want?” she barks, too upset to bother with pleasantries. She imagines he smiles, for a split second. He looks no different from the last time she saw him, what feels like a lifetime ago.

“There is nothing so tiresome as prey that does not run, that does not _fear_. No satisfaction in something that doesn’t understand the life that is being ripped from it, that doesn’t struggle and fight to hold onto it, until the moment it can no longer.”

“That’s not- I’m not like you,” she snarls, something in his words hitting her in the dark place of her soul, making her lash out in response.

He shrugs slightly, the corners of his lips turned up. He’s _mocking_ her.

“It is the nature of the predator to seek out prey. When the prey is gone, the predator becomes… obsolete.” He shrugs slightly. “A relic.”

Her bow is in her hands, an arrow aimed sure and true at his chest.

“Do not,” she growls, “call me a relic.” Something about the term burns at her, reminds her of the ruins she has spent the past moths navigating, all the broken technology, abandoned, never to be discovered or used again.

His small smile turns into a feral grin as his eyes glint.

“Of course,” he says with confidence, “one type of prey can be replaced with another”.

* * *

They make a good team.

She hates it - but they do.

(She fears his bloodlust is rubbing off on her, though.)

Now the machines are no threat, people are free to roam the land as they please. This, of course, applies to bandits as well.

Currently, Nil is somewhere on the other side of the camp, entering through the western entrance.

She wonders what it is about bandit camps that they always require more than one entrance. Not that she’s complaining. It makes it so much easier for them to sneak in.

Her arrow slices through her targets throat, the only sound a faint thump as the body hits the floor. As she pulls her bowstring taut for the second time, her intended secondary target drops. Eyes narrowed, she scans and finds him, red headdress blending surprisingly well with the tall grass he is crouched in. She sees a flash of white teeth, then he’s gone. For all her training in the wilds, she still cannot compete with Nil when it comes to stealth – not without her Focus. He makes noise only when he wants to, and can sneak up on a Stalker (proved two nights ago on the way to this camp, resulting in a spooked machine and a disgruntled Aloy).

A few hours later, they stand in the centre of camp, cleaning their respective weapons as bodies cool around them. Nil has a spray of blood across his cheek, and when he glances up, scitmar in hand and eyes shining in the moonlight, he looks like a thing from the wild, some ghost hunter come from the spirit world like in the tales told by Nora mothers to scare their children.

Aloy doesn’t know why she feels closest to Nil in these moments, despairs at the feeling of her blood singing as she lets arrows loose and sees bodies drop. Machines are – were – unfeeling, unthinking threats to innocent lives. These people are also threats… but they are people, still.

He flashes one of his two-second grins at her, spins his knife before placing it in its hip-sheath.

She smiles back.

* * *

“You’re getting sloppy, Aloy” he taunts, and her cheeks warm even as she swats at him.

(She doesn’t know when their relationship became such that she feels comfortable enough to do that.)

“My bowstring needs tightening” she mutters in defence, before bringing her spear down on the still wailing alarm next to them. The quiet is filled with his laugh, a quiet bark of amusement.

“The Voice of our Teeth has never had such a rival for proper maintenance and dedication, forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

Caught out, she says nothing, and walks away in a huff. Blood splatters her armour, and she can feel it drying on the side of her face and hair. So she might have missed one bandit, who then proceeded to raise the alarm and bring the entire camp down on their heads. Hardly as if it matters. There has yet to be any camp that poses a proper challenge.

A trader they met on the road yesterday mentioned how much safer the roads have become lately, praised the sun-king Avad for devoting his resources to the safety of his people.

Aloy had smiled and traded her last three watcher hearts for more hard point arrows than a machine hunter should reasonably need, taking care to hide her left side, still splattered with drying blood.

* * *

As seasons pass, they develop something of a routine. They migrate, not unlike the machine’s natural counterparts used to.

(Aloy has learned many trivial pieces of information like this over the course of her search for GAIA, and treasures each and every one, still.)

Summer in Carja Land is blistering – shade is scarce, water scarcer, and any fool desperate enough to go hunting when the sun is at its peak is assumed dead before they even leave. If anyone were to ask after Aloy and Nil – for it their partnership is an accepted fact at this point – they will not find them. They are not fools, and at the beginnings of the dry season Aloy gathers up a couple of striders, Nil strips down their packs (knowing well enough what Aloy will and will not part with), and they head north.

The incredible force of the sun requires they travel at night, both for their own benefit and that of the machines, whose cooling compartments were not built to cope with constant motion in such extreme heat.

They stick together long enough that this becomes something of an annual tradition. Every year, Aloy will catch Nil affectionately naming the two beasts, and at first he will deny it, then proclaim it with such haughtiness she cannot help but laugh and laugh until he threatens her with the song of The Voice Of Our Teeth.

(They both know well enough it is an empty threat, but neither is willing to truly show how much they care for the other, so they pretend.)

The Banuk know to expect them as the summer reaches its peak in the southern lands, and more often than not they arrive to simultaneous greetings and errands –

“We started to get worried – you were expected two weeks ago! There was a huge cave in over by whitewash creek – I don’t suppose you could use those machine-taming skills of yours and help out?”

“Aloy! Nil! So good to see you, now I hear you’ve been diligently helping out Sun-King Avad with his bandits – it would only be fair you help us with ours, yes?”

(Their contracts with the clans allow them to satisfy both their wanderlust and their bloodlust, and if people notice how eager they are for violence, they do not comment.)

Banuk bandits are much the same as Carja bandits, who are much the same as Oseram bandits, who differ little from Nora bandits. It is a strange comfort in Aloy’s life at this point, this constant – she has lost all she knew, many of her skills are now useless and unneeded – but skills used against machines can be transferred easily enough to humans, it turns out.

They leave at the start of winter to many a good natured joke about Nil’s inability to handle the cold - he did not have the Nora-land winter training Aloy did, and it shows. As much training as she had though, she still lacks an appreciation for winters as harsh as any Carja summer - and so they leave.

They travel past the gates to the east of the Grave-Hoard (a place that still has Aloy picking up her pace, even after all this time) and down into Nora land, because as much as the Nora still set her teeth on edge, Mother Teersa is not immortal, and Aloy owes her at least that much.

Some years they don’t make it – a bad winter leaves the pass blocked with snow, inaccessible to all outside Noraland; or the Nora yet again declare war on all outsiders beyond the Sacred Land, shutting their gates and firing on anyone not in Nora blue; or (more frequently as Mother Teersa grows older and her voice fades from council) they have suddenly remembered that Aloy was first an outcast before she was a saviour.

Some years, the truth of it is that Aloy simply cannot bear to face Rost’s final resting place, and so they do not go. Those years, Nil does not question her sullen silences that can last weeks, or her angry rants about peculiar and inconsequential notions. He knows there are some things she does not talk about, much as she knows there are some places he will not go.

They make a good team.

She has stopped hating it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finally stopped overthinking and just posted it - I felt like maybe the ending was too abrupt but honestly if I didn't end it there it was just going to keep snowballing and I could only think of so many things Nil and Aloy would do post-almost-apocalypse.  
> Please kudos/review if you want to - I love getting the notifications, and I reply to all comments!! I loved Nil's character when I was playing the game and it was a shame he never got any more scenes apart from the handful of bandit jobs so this is my fix it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you think this was any good please do leave kudos or a comment :)


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